Looks like over the course of 1 summer, 25 people were executed or died in prison for witchcraft. Your typical Chicago urban youth probably has worse odds of surviving a summer than your typical female in Salem in the 17th century.

Demonstrative of exactly the kind of journalistic integrity and precision one expects from mentalfloss

First of all, if you'd bothered to pay attention in any sort of reading comprehension lessons, you would notice that they are relating the witchcraft standards of "evidence" of the past to people in the present. The very title of the article is "17 Signs That You'd Qualify As A Witch In 1692" Not "17 signs that qualified a person as a witch in 1692" Where else would a modern person such as You keep their dairy products?

Second, Mental Floss doesn't present itself as journalism or news. They are a personal interest magazine, not a news magazine.

Aaaaaaand, we're done. Women are the Debbil and deserve anything that happens to them. That hasn't changed much in the US. You have no idea how refreshing it is to live in a place where that particular part of the "women are lesser" idea never took root.

What place is that? I would like to go to there, please.

Canada. Northern Alberta, specifically. Sexism certainly exists - but it doesn't have that religio-moral component to it. And if a woman can perform at the same level as a man, no one gives a crap that she's a woman.

That is a little more prevalent in the states than you make it sound by saying "that hasn't changed much" from the times of the Salem witch burnings. Just a tad disingenuous.

It's not nice to come into the middle of a conversation and pretend you know what's being discussed, based on the last few words. Now, hush. Grown-ups are talking.

1. The thread is here for all to see and to be read in sequence.2. The "conversation", as quoted, is in it's entirety. It is neither long nor complicated.3. Your initial post, about how not much has changed(the point of contention), was at the very beginning of the thread.

So you got called out as being a dick, and now you're being condescending about how I didn't get it? My you're full of yourself.

Welcome to fark, I suppose.

That's your fault for caller out her exaggerations. Next up, accusations that you're doing that because of sexism. Obviously, we men are never argumentative to each other here.

We're much more enlightened and civilized today. People have a right to legal counsel and a fair trial. It's not like people accused of terrorism can be tortured, held indefinitely without trial, or be executed via drone strike on nothing more than the word of the president. No, these days we rely on rational thought and the rule of law to govern our lives, rather than the irrational fear of the unknown.

maniacalclown:Speaking of Europe, my European History textbook from back in high school heavily implied that one of the supposed signs a woman was a witch was the ability to have multiple orgasms without a refractory period.

Yeah, i'm definitely toast then...

/no biggie, i've lived a pretty fun and orgasm heavy life. Could die tomorrow and i'd be happy to go

Weaver95:Tiiba: I know obesity is a modern problem, but was it really this bad back then?

In some communities it was, yes. These days being outed as a witch can cost you your job but that's about it. I keep the whole pagan thing on the minimum when I'm at work. Ill argue someone to death about politics and religion but not while I'm on the clock. I have far too much to do these days and not nearly enough time to get it done!

Aaaaaaand, we're done. Women are the Debbil and deserve anything that happens to them. That hasn't changed much in the US. You have no idea how refreshing it is to live in a place where that particular part of the "women are lesser" idea never took root.

What place is that? I would like to go to there, please.

Canada. Northern Alberta, specifically. Sexism certainly exists - but it doesn't have that religio-moral component to it. And if a woman can perform at the same level as a man, no one gives a crap that she's a woman.

That is a little more prevalent in the states than you make it sound by saying "that hasn't changed much" from the times of the Salem witch burnings. Just a tad disingenuous.

It's not nice to come into the middle of a conversation and pretend you know what's being discussed, based on the last few words. Now, hush. Grown-ups are talking.

That's how pretty much all of the internet works. Nobody has the time to read ALL of the comments and track all of the conversations and try to understand people's entire position. They read a few comments, either near the top or near the bottom, see something they agree with/disagree with and hit reply.

Eh. When I participate in a thread, I usually end up reading the entire thread. There are a few folks who I have farkied in red whose posts I may skim over or skip entirely if the thread is especially long, but generally speaking I read pretty much the whole thing.

Aaaaaaand, we're done. Women are the Debbil and deserve anything that happens to them. That hasn't changed much in the US. You have no idea how refreshing it is to live in a place where that particular part of the "women are lesser" idea never took root.

What place is that? I would like to go to there, please.

Canada. Northern Alberta, specifically. Sexism certainly exists - but it doesn't have that religio-moral component to it. And if a woman can perform at the same level as a man, no one gives a crap that she's a woman.

That is a little more prevalent in the states than you make it sound by saying "that hasn't changed much" from the times of the Salem witch burnings. Just a tad disingenuous.

It's not nice to come into the middle of a conversation and pretend you know what's being discussed, based on the last few words. Now, hush. Grown-ups are talking.

1. The thread is here for all to see and to be read in sequence.2. The "conversation", as quoted, is in it's entirety. It is neither long nor complicated.3. Your initial post, about how not much has changed(the point of contention), was at the very beginning of the thread.

So you got called out as being a dick, and now you're being condescending about how I didn't get it? My you're full of yourself.

Welcome to fark, I suppose.

That's your fault for caller out her exaggerations. Next up, accusations that you're doing that because of sexism. Obviously, we men are never argumentative to each other here.

Aaaaaaand, we're done. Women are the Debbil and deserve anything that happens to them. That hasn't changed much in the US. You have no idea how refreshing it is to live in a place where that particular part of the "women are lesser" idea never took root.

What place is that? I would like to go to there, please.

Canada. Northern Alberta, specifically. Sexism certainly exists - but it doesn't have that religio-moral component to it. And if a woman can perform at the same level as a man, no one gives a crap that she's a woman.

That is a little more prevalent in the states than you make it sound by saying "that hasn't changed much" from the times of the Salem witch burnings. Just a tad disingenuous.

It's not nice to come into the middle of a conversation and pretend you know what's being discussed, based on the last few words. Now, hush. Grown-ups are talking.

1. The thread is here for all to see and to be read in sequence.2. The "conversation", as quoted, is in it's entirety. It is neither long nor complicated.3. Your initial post, about how not much has changed(the point of contention), was at the very beginning of the thread.

So you got called out as being a dick, and now you're being condescending about how I didn't get it? My you're full of yourself.

Welcome to fark, I suppose.

That's your fault for caller out her exaggerations. Next up, accusations that you're doing that because of sexism. Obviously, we men are never argumentative to each other here.

Maybe not, but some of you sure are whiny crybabies.

"BOO-HOO-HOO! A woman was mean to me on the Internet!"

Who's whining? Young liberal women are fast becoming an even more annoying group than neo-cons.

iheartscotch:cynicalbastard: And for the last time NOBODY was burned in the Salem Witch Trials. Or executions. They were hanged with one exception who was pressed to death- burning may have been quicker. Unless your ancestor accidentally broke a lamp while trying to read out court records, if you say your ancestor was burned at the stake in Salem you're just another kook who thinks 10 million people were somehow killed in the European Witch Trials and 99.9 per cent of the records magically disappeared, and you believe talking to your pet cat, rat, or hamster makes you a psychic.

I agree with most of that; but, no one is really sure how many women got executed for witchcraft in Europe over the centuries. There are records of witch trials that predate Christianity. If the actual figure isn't in the millions of women; it's in the hundreds of thousands. Hell, the Spanish Inquisition got at least a hundred thousand by itself.

For one thing, the Spanish inquisition was not directed against witchcraft- in fact, they hated the time required to investigate those. It took time out from their main focus which was directed against Jews and Moors. For another, the figure of 100,000 is only roughly accurate if you are speaking of total numbers of cases brought before the Inquisition. Actual executions were a minority, and a fairly small one at that- best estimates is about 5,000 total. Still nasty, but no Holocaust.As for Witch trials, excellent research has been done. One good bit of research is Recent Developments in the Study of The Great European Witch Hunt, by Jenny Gibbons. As for pre-Christian Witch Trials, it would be pretty difficult to lay that burden on the evil monotheist/male establishment, as they were more of a "thing" in the hinterlands of Pagan Europe, mainly because pagan folks actually believed in that crap, and both men and women could be accused and killed usually without benefit of trial. In fact, the whole witchcraft hysteria thing seems to have been one of those things like Easter eggs and Christmas celebrations in winter that got passed on from the pagans to the Christian.